Luke's Passion

The scriptures referred to are Luke 22 and 23.

Cops know that when you interview multiple witnesses to an event, you get multiple accounts. The witnesses will generally agree on basics (there was a car accident, it involved a white car and a blue car, it took place on the corner of 1^st and Main) but will vary in regards to details (one person will note that the white car was speeding, another that the blue car crossed the center line, a third that one car was avoiding a box lying in the road). Nobody has all the details. This is because of different vantage points, differences in attention to details, differences in what struck the observers. A witness who is a car mechanic will emphasize different aspects than a witness who is a nurse. Cops know that if all the witnesses agree on everything, they have colluded. Because it is normal for different people to see things differently.

Or consider the parable of the blind monks encountering an elephant for the first time. The one touching one of the elephant's legs declares that an elephant is like a tree trunk. The monk patting its side says an elephant is like a wall. The one feeling its trunk announces that an elephant is like a snake. The one touching its tusk insists it it like a spear. All are correct—in regards to the part of the elephant they are encountering. The problem comes when they dismiss the others' observations. All the details the monks note are true but none of them has exhaustive experience of the elephant.

One of the things that convinces me that the gospels are not made up is that they show this natural variation in viewpoints. If they were fictions, the church would have harmonized the details and given us one official version. But instead 4 versions were collected and preserved and not altered even when the details seem hard to reconcile. Again, as in our examples, 3 witnesses will say the cars were white and blue; one witness will inevitably say one car was green. That witness is named John.

What's more remarkable is that we know that the synoptic gospels, the first 3, used a lot of the same sources. Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source: Matthew contains about 95% of Mark and Luke about 50%. In addition both Matthew and Luke had access to another document, which scholars call Q, that accounts for things they both cover but which are not in Mark. And Matthew and Luke each have material which is unique to their own particular gospel. And yet neither felt the need to hew to a single version of Jesus' life. Their attitude seems to be that of your wife who, when you are recounting to a friend a story from your own life, feels free to amend and even contradict parts of it.

Luke is the only Gentile writer in the Bible and his Greek is the best in the New Testament. He is a doctor and a researcher and he knows how to write a contemporary history. He emphasizes Jesus' compassion for the poor, the sick, the disabled, the marginalized. He focuses on the role of women in Jesus' life and ministry. He recounts more songs and parables than the other gospels and pays special attention to the action of the Spirit. All of this shows in his account of Jesus' death.

One thing we learn in Luke's passion narrative is that Jesus' healing ministry went on right up until his arrest. All 4 of the gospels tell us that one of the disciples cut off the ear of one of the slaves of the high priest. Only Luke, the doctor, tells us that Jesus healed the wounded man. (Luke 22:51) Since this slave was not a bystander but a member of the group who came with swords and clubs to arrest him, what Jesus is doing here is showing love for his enemies. (Luke 6:27-28) He practices what he preaches.

John tells us the sword wielder was Peter and his actions also could have precipitated a melee in which the Twelve, only having 2 swords, would have gotten massacred. Jesus defuses the situation by pointing out he is not the leader of a rebellion. He has been teaching and making his positions clear every day in public. Nobody touched him then. That point, and Jesus' healing the slave, kept the situation from escalating. Jesus is concerned about sparing his disciples. (John 18:8-9)

Only Luke tells us that when Peter denied his Lord for the third time that Jesus turns and looks at him. Since Peter is outside in the courtyard of the high priest's residence, we can infer that Jesus was being moved at that time, either to his place of confinement for a few hours or to the Sanhedrin. But the moment is chilling. It means not only did Peter deny Jesus 3 times, as Christ predicted, but the last time he did so Jesus was within earshot. When Jesus looked at him, Peter would know that he had heard. He failed Jesus and did so in front of him. He must have felt mortified. He was flooded with guilt and shame. No wonder he went out and not only wept but wept bitterly. (Luke 22:60-62)

Only Luke gives us the specific accusations that Jesus was charged with: perverting the nation, opposing paying taxes to Caesar and declaring himself to be a king, the Messiah. The first charge was of no interest to the Romans. Both of the next 2 charges were capital crimes. The second one, however, is false and is never seriously considered by Pilate. It is the third that ultimately sticks. Among the synoptics only Luke reports that Jesus answers affirmatively when Pilate asks if he is a king. It is John who tells us why Pilate did not take that admission at face value.

Only Luke reveals that Pilate sends Jesus to Herod, the tetrarch who rules Galilee, as a way of avoiding passing a verdict and because he technically has jurisdiction. But the man who executed John the Baptist decides against killing another popular religious figure and puts the whole issue back in Pilate's lap. Pilate, who never got along with the people he ruled and who had been reprimanded by Rome over his treatment of them, eventually caves like the politician he is. Jesus is condemned and Barabbas, a notorious rebel and murderer, is released. The innocent Jesus is to die literally in place of a sinner.

Luke, who as a doctor saw a lot of suffering, does not cover the additional abuse heaped on Jesus by the Roman soldiers. But with his focus on women, Luke does cover Jesus' grim saying to the women who routinely mourned those who were to be executed. Jesus' saying is quizzical but seems to say, “Save your tears for you and your children. Because if this is what is done to the living tree, me, what will be done to the dead wood, namely Jerusalem?” In 40 years, one Biblical generation, Jerusalem will fall to the Romans. Josephus, who saw the siege, describes how, during the famine in the blockaded city, a woman killed and ate her own infant. Would that she were barren. Josephus says that as many as 500 people a day tried to escape from Jerusalem, only to be captured and crucified, until they ran out of crosses and ran out of spaces to put the crosses. Jesus is haunted by this horrific vision of the future of Jerusalem as he carries his own cross up the hill of Golgotha outside the city.

As Jesus' ministry of healing did not end in Gethsemane, neither did his ministry of forgiveness and reconciliation. Luke tells us that, as he hung on the cross, Jesus prayed for his killers: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Typically those who were executed were supposed to say, “May my death atone for all my sins.” But Jesus' death was to atone for the sins of the whole world, and that included those who were responsible for his death. And who exactly are the “they” Jesus is referring to? The Roman soldiers on the death squad? Pilate and Herod, who had the power to stop this? Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, who misunderstood the kind of Messiah Jesus was, had him arrested and shouted for his crucifixion? We don't know. But if any of them had repented and come to the cross, Jesus would have forgiven them.

We know that not only from Jesus' prayer to his Father, but also from another thing Jesus says from the cross. Only Luke tells us that one of the criminals crucified with Jesus changes his mind about hurling abuse at him. We are not sure why but he must have seen something in the way Jesus acted or spoke from the cross. Perhaps he overheard his prayer asking forgiveness for those who put him there. Whatever it was, this criminal reevaluated his opinion of Jesus and tells the other crucified man to knock it off. “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong.” And to Christ he says, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” (Luke 23:41-42)

We don't know what this man did but we know that crucifixion was reserved for slaves and rebels. It is quite likely that he was arrested along with Barabbas, and charged like him with insurrection and murder. This man had blood on his hands. But at this point there is nothing he can do to make up for his crimes. There is nothing he can do but speak. But his confession of his guilt and his faith that Jesus did indeed have a kingdom he would come into possession of was enough. In a remarkable act of grace, Jesus says to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) This violent criminal, this terrorist, is the only person in the whole Bible given that assurance.

All the synoptics say that Jesus gave a loud cry just before dying. Only Luke tells us what he said. “Father, into your hand I commit my spirit.” (Luke 23:46) This line from Psalm 31:5 was, according to William Barclay, the prayer a Jewish child was taught to say every night before going to sleep. To Jesus, death was sleep, a sleep from which he would awaken 3 days hence. The pain was almost over. The long night was coming. As Jesus lost consciousness from loss of blood, as his breathing became too difficult to maintain, as his heart failed, as numbness spread through his limbs, he thought of his Father, in whose bosom he would soon find rest.

We need all 4 gospels to get a full picture of Jesus. And it is good that we have Luke's view of our Lord. We see in his last hours how Jesus continued to heal, continued to forgive, continued to love his enemies at a time most of us, were we in his place, would be consumed with our own pain and suffering and the injustice of what was happening to us. We would not be as gracious as he.

And that is really why he went through all this. It was not just to wipe out our sins but to transform us from what we are into what God wants us to be. Just as Jesus changed the criminal on the cross, the woman who washed his feet, and Zaccheus the corrupt tax collector, he wants to change us. Like the prodigal son in the parable, he wants those of us who were dead to be alive again. (Luke 15:11-32) He wants us to be as compassionate as the good Samaritan. (Luke 10:30-37) He wants us to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind to our banquets. (Luke 14:12-14) He wants us not to judge, not to condemn, but to forgive. (Luke 6:37) He wants us to renounce ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him. (Luke 9:23) The only way we can do this is if the kingdom of God is within us (Luke 17:20-21), which comes when we ask our heavenly Father to give us the Holy Spirit. (Luke 11:13)

As Paul, Luke's mentor, wrote, “...if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) and “Do not be conformed to this present world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...” (Romans 12:2) As C.S. Lewis put it, God doesn't want nice people, he wants new men and new women.

Towards the beginning of his ministry, Jesus read these words from the book of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to release the oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

That was Jesus' mission statement. And as the Body of Christ, the ongoing embodiment of God's love and grace, anointed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, it is our mission statement. Jesus' healing ministry goes on. He wants to heal this sick world and transform it by healing those who are blind to their sins, who are deaf to the cries of their fellow human beings, who are mute in the face of injustice, who are too lame to get off their butts and spread the good news. He wants us to feed the poor with bread and the poor in spirit with his Word. He wants us to free prisoners from the chains of injustice and those who are prisoners of their own sinful thoughts, words and deeds. He wants us to be the people “who have turned the world upside down.” (Acts 17:6)

It is not normal to heal those who have come to harm you. It is not normal to forgive the friend who denied knowing you when you needed him the most. It is not normal to ask God to forgive the people who are in the very act of killing you. It is not normal to assure murderers of a place in heaven. Jesus was not normal. Go thou and do likewise.

Let us pray:

Lord God, heavenly Father, King of the universe,

we thank you for Luke's perspective on Jesus, our Messiah.

We thank you that he highlighted how different he is from the kings and rulers of this world.

We thank you that he showed us how to live.

We thank you that he died for us.

We thank you for raising him to new life.

And we thank you for raising us to new life in him.

Help us to renounce all rights to ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow him.

Help us to extend your invitation to the wedding feast of your son to all we encounter on the highways and byways of this life.

And when your son returns, may we be found doing the work our master gave us to do.

We ask all these things in the name of your son, our savior Jesus Christ,

and through the power of your Holy Spirit,

who live and reign with you, Father,

one God forever and ever.

Amen.

A Seemingly Simple Meal

The scriptures referred to are Exodus 12:1-14, 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 and John 13:1-35.

Weird the significance little things take on. I was looking at the last pictures I took of my dad before his death. It was in one of his favorite restaurants. Breakfast was his favorite meal and since he could no longer drive, we would take him out to a different place every morning, either Bob Evans, or Steak N' Shake, or this place, whose name, if I remember rightly, was Chris'. I love these pictures. My dad's mouth is open. He is expounding on something, a genetic trait I believe. His chin is being cradled by his fingers, crooked and swollen by arthritis. The morning light coming through the restaurant's glass wall gives him an almost beatific look. But I was surprised by something I never noticed before. In his left breast pocket, peaking out of the jacket he was wearing, are 3 pens. I thought having multiple pens in the shirt pocket was my thing. But apparently I got it from my dad. Along with his obsession with always having a travel mug with ice water at hand. (Seriously, we found a dozen of them in his cabinets after his death. I have nearly 30 years to catch up to that number. Don't tell my wife.)

I didn't realize how much those meals meant to me till a year later when I passed a sign for Steak N' Shake, joked about going there for breakfast and suddenly got very emotional. My point is I remembered him vividly from those meals. And it was the little details that reminded me how connected we were. 

Tonight we commemorate the Last Supper. It was a Passover meal that Jesus transformed into what we variously call Communion, the Lord's Supper, or the Eucharist. And yet what Jesus gives significance to is interesting for not being what immediately comes to mind. If you've ever been to a Passover seder you know that practically everything eaten and drunk has a significance. The karpas or vegetables symbolize spring; the marror and chazeret or bitter herbs represent the bitter conditions of the Hebrew slaves; the charoset symbolizes the mortar the Hebrews built with; the lamb represents the lamb whose blood was smeared on the doorposts so the angel of death would pass over the house.

Notice anything? The matzah, the unleavened bread which gives the feast its alternate name, is just that: humble flatbread, eaten hastily anticipating the rushed exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It's just bread they didn't have time to make properly because events got ahead of them. It would be like commemorating Hurricane Irma with Pop-Tarts that weren't toasted because we had to evacuate fast. Yes, there is much made of the Afikomen, which is broken off from the middle matzah and hidden for later. It represents the future of freedom, according to some rabbis. Passover also includes drinking 4 cups of wine, seen by some as 4 expressions of redemption but mostly it's to lift the spirits. And there's a fifth glass left for Elijah should he come back and usher in the Messiah. As one Jewish comedian put it, every one of their holidays boils down to 3 things: they tried to kill us; we survived; let's eat!

By the way, much of this is not Biblical. It developed later. In Exodus, it simply says to take an unblemished year old male lamb or goat, kill it at twilight, put the blood on the top and sides of the door frame of the house, roast the lamb whole over a fire with bitter herbs and unleavened bread. What you don't eat, burn in the morning. In the future they are to remove all yeast from the house and the festival lasts a week. And they are to make sure they answer the children's questions and tell them the significance of the feast. (Exodus 12:1-28) Everything else, all the extra foods and all the specific symbolic meanings, evolved later. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that Jesus was not trampling on detailed symbolism when he gave the elements new meanings.

The focal part of the meal is the lamb, right? Its blood was the signal for death to pass the house over and it was the main meat at the meal. Jesus, having been called the Lamb of God by John the Baptist, should have made much of that. But he doesn't. Why not? Because he was the Paschal Lamb. With his death, no more lambs need be sacrificed. Nor any more goats, bulls, oxen, and certainly no people. No more blood should ever be shed. Jesus' death was the ultimate sacrifice, wiping out all sins once and for all. It could never be repeated.

By instead identifying himself with the bread, Jesus was showing himself to be as essential to our spiritual life as bread is to physical life. For most people meat was expensive and thus a rare treat. That's still true in many parts of the world. People might eat meat at major festivals but they ate bread daily. Bread was and is a major source of protein. Jesus was saying, “I am as essential to your life and health as bread.”

Notice something else about Passover. While on the original Passover the blood was put on the doorposts, by Jesus' day the blood was sprinkled on the altar at the temple. Plus kosher meat has to be totally drained of blood. So there is no blood anywhere at the site of the Passover meal. And it certainly wasn't drunk. That would be repugnant to Jews.

Jesus takes a glass of the Passover wine, probably the last one, the one poured after the meal is eaten. He says, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Corinthians 11:25) Covenants were sealed with blood. As Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.” Or that last phrase could be translated “by means of” or “by reason of the life.” Jesus' blood would make atonement for all of us by reason of the life in him, divine life, eternal life.

In the Passover meal both the death of the firstborn and the life of the firstborn are commemorated. In the Eucharist the death of God's unique son means life for all of us. How much of this did the disciples comprehend at the last supper? Not much. Jesus said enigmatic things often. Sometimes they could get him to explain them afterward. But after this Jesus reveals that one of them will betray him. And all thought of getting him to explain what he was saying about the meal is forgotten. Only after the resurrection do they remember and understand what is going on. 

And I bet their theology of the Lord's Supper was nothing like our elaborate explorations of the topic. This doesn't mean that either they or we are wrong, no more than an understanding of nutrition science means that people without such detailed knowledge can't work out what is and is not a healthy diet. Indeed, a lot of present day research is just finding out exactly why, say, the diet of the peoples of the Mediterranean is so healthy. We are not so much discovering something new as uncovering new things about an old truth.

That's why I prefer the idea of Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist. He is there in a special way we cannot define. Yes, at a specific time Jesus said, “This is my body,” “This is my blood.” But God the Son does not live in time; he lives in eternity, where there is no past or future. It is eternally now. This is, not “was” my body; this is, not “was” my blood. At the Eucharist, eternity touches time. Jesus opens the window to the timeless truth that we are dependent on him for life, as we always have been and always will be. It is also a foretaste of the future wedding supper of the Lamb, mentioned in Revelation 19:9, the banquet of the endless Messianic Age.

The physical act has no meaning apart from its spiritual significance, however. It is not just another meal as Paul takes pains to point out to the church at Corinth. It is important to examine ourselves and recognize the Lord's body and blood in what we are about to incorporate into our bodies. (1 Corinthians 11:27-29) There is a deeper meaning to what we are doing. Not only are we making Christ a part of us, he is making us a part of him.

When we come together to partake of the body and blood of Christ, we are incorporated into the body of Christ. We are not only fortified individually but as a group who are bound by love of Jesus and love for one another. Jesus' death not only reconciles us with God but reconciles us to each other. Paul says Christ's “purpose was to create in himself one new humanity” out of our divided world and break down the barriers of hostility which separate us. (Ephesians 2:14-16) Just as Jesus was not interested in only healing people's bodies, his sacrifice was not merely to heal our souls. They are entwined, as are we, his creatures. We are all related through the same woman and through the same man. We are all one family. Our divisions are as vehement and as tragic and as stupid as any feud within a family. Jesus came to end that. So we come to the Lord's table to break bread and drink wine together as God's family, as Christ's body, as the Spirit's temple. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

Which is why we wash each other's feet. This is not a familiar part of life today as it was in Jesus' time. We don't usually walk in sandals through dusty roads and mucky streets with open sewers. We don't have slaves to do the nasty job of cleaning dirty feet. When Jesus did it, it startled and shamed the Twelve. They knew it had to be done. Any of them could have done it. But none did. So Jesus did what was unpleasant but necessary just as he would the next day. And Jesus said, “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” (John 13:15-16) And as Paul said, “Bear one another's burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) The way of Jesus is the way of taking care of each other in love, even when it requires sacrifice and dealing with the mess of human community.

Tonight we go back to that evening, in an upper room with Jesus and his friends. With them we celebrate the feast of liberation. With them we hear his puzzling words about what seems to be ordinary bread and wine. With them we participate in the new covenant instituted by Jesus. With them we wonder if we will betray him. With them we are conscious of the sacrifice of the lamb and how our deaths are averted by it. With them we anticipate the wedding banquet of the Lamb in the kingdom of God to come.

This is strong food for thought. This is a heady wine to drink in. Taste and see that the Lord is good.

The Theological Virtues: Love

The scriptures referred to are Philippians 2:5-11 and Mark 15:1-39.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that the Greeks had more words for love than we do in English. In his book The Four Loves, he examines their words for family love, friendship, romantic love and divine love. The distinctions between the various kinds of love are important. Just this week my newsfeed kept offering me the tawdry story of a woman arrested for marrying her daughter. It turns out she was previously married to her son! That is a confusion of two very different kinds of love, a distinction almost all religions and cultures uphold. On another front, it is not uncommon for men to mistake friendship with a woman as an invitation to romantic love. And occasionally a woman thinks a man who is friendly wants to take the relationship to a different level. Sometimes that works out; sometimes the person pushing to make the friendship into a romance is seriously misreading signals. The 4 loves are generally distinct. Since we are speaking of love as a virtue, we are going to be concentrating on agape, the kind of love we find in God. But as Jesus compared heavenly things to earthly things by way of analogy and parable, we will be referring to the other loves in order to illustrate divine love.

And we are in good company. Scripture does the same thing. God is depicted as a loving parent, as a boon companion, and even as a husband to Israel. As with all metaphors and similes, we are not to take them beyond the things they are trying to illustrate. All such analogies break down if you try to overextend them. But lets look to see what specific qualities each comparison is trying to bring out.

God is called Father hundreds of times in the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. This is understood as a metaphor, because he is not biologically our father. But the title indicates that God is not remote or uninterested in his creatures. He loves us, protects us, listens to us, gives us our daily bread and disciplines us when necessary as a father would. There are a few places where God is compared to a mother (Deuteronomy 32:18; Isaiah 49:15; 66:13) but I think the Hebrews generally shied away from that language because of the abundance of goddesses and fertility religions around them. God has no wife, nor does he comport himself like the lustful pagan gods, going after anything female. Again the Hebrews were interested in the nonsexual aspects of fatherhood, the parental functions God fulfilled. They pictured God as strict but loving, a strong protector of his people. You see this in places where God is called “a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows.” (Psalm 68:5) In the culture of the time, they were the least powerful and most vulnerable members of society. God steps in and tells his people that such persons are the recipients of his special attention, so they had better not mistreat or cheat them.

God is spoken of as friend less often than he is as Father. In Jeremiah 3:4 God is called, “My Father, my friend from my youth...” In the book of James it says of Abraham, “he was called God's friend.” (James 2:23) More often Jesus is spoken of as a friend to us. Jesus himself says, “No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father.” (John 15:13-15) Jesus also addresses the fact that his critics called him “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Matthew 11:19) He doesn't deny it.

But what does it mean that God is our friend? Let's look at what the Bible says about friendship. Proverbs says, “...there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) It also says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17) We also distinguish between “fair weather friends” and those who are always there for you. Ecclesiastes describes friendship thus: “Two people are better than one, because they can reap more benefit from their labor. For if they fall, one will help his companion up, but pity the person who falls down and has no one to help him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm, but how can one person keep warm by himself? Although an assailant may overpower one person, two can withstand him. Moreover, a three-stranded cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12) So if God is our friend, we can count on him to have our back, to help us up when we fall, to comfort and to protect us.

One other metaphor for how God loves us is as a husband, primarily in Jeremiah and Hosea. Again this is not to imply anything sexual about God but to compare the love and commitment of God to Israel to that of a faithful husband. Indeed in Hosea, we see him pictured as an extraordinarily committed and loving husband, seeking out and willing to take back his unfaithful wife. Adultery becomes a metaphor for Israel's idolatry. Going after other gods is like taking on lovers. Hosea uses his own unhappy marriage as an enacted parable to illustrate this. Yet as Hosea does for his wife, God is always willing to forgive and take his straying people back. This metaphor for God's love tells us that God is committed to us and faithful in his love for us and that, although we are to be as committed and as faithful to him, yet he is willing to forgive and welcome the sinner.

Those are how scripture uses images of things we know to explain aspects of God's love to us. But there is one aspect of God's love that is very hard to explain. And that is just how giving God is.

In pagan times you were always giving gifts to gods and making sacrifices to keep their favor. At the early stages, there was no reason to think Yahweh was different. All of his life Abraham wanted a son and heir. When in his extreme old age, God grants him his son Isaac, Abraham is happy. And then God asks him the unthinkable: to sacrifice this son. This was not unheard of. We know that human sacrifice was practiced by practically all early peoples, to either appease the gods or to insure fertility of the land. In Mesopotamia, where Abraham came from, a human or animal would be sacrificed and laid in the foundation of a house or building to protect it from evil spirits. Child sacrifice was practiced by the Phoenicians and the Arameans. The practice would be repeatedly condemned in the law of Moses and by the prophets. But this predates all that. So this would seem to be something a god might ask of you. And Abraham ultimately proves willing to go through with it. But at the last moment God stops him and provides a ram as a substitute sacrifice. By this act, God shows that he will never ask his followers to sacrifice their children to him. And he shows that if a sacrifice is needed, he will provide it. God is a giver.

While animal sacrifice was quite common in the ancient world, substituting an animal for a human was not. The idea that something or someone else could be sacrificed in your place was unique to the Hebrews.

This principle is reinforced in the Exodus. The Israelites were to kill lambs and smear their blood on the doorposts of their homes so that their firstborn would be spared from death which would pass over them. Moreover this is the event that leads to God's people being freed from slavery, and eventually coming to the promised land. This is the pivotal event of the Hebrew faith and the basis of the covenant between God and the people of Israel.

A millennium and a half later, Jesus repurposes elements of the Passover meal to symbolize his sacrifice. He calls the unleavened bread his body and the wine his blood. He dies as the nation is sacrificing its lambs for the Passover. His death frees God's people from their enslavement to sin and lets us enter the kingdom of God. God giving his son to save us is the basis of the new covenant between God and all humans who turn to him.

But, while, as Paul points out, someone might give his life to save a good man, Jesus died for us while we were still sinners. (Romans 5:6-8) Jesus dies even before his own disciples can grasp the idea. It isn't until after his resurrection that the disciples get it.

But what Jesus reveals about God's love is unique. Unlike the love of a friend, or a father or a husband, we don't see much in the way of this kind of love. The closest would be that rare person who donates one of his or her kidneys to a stranger who needs one. Even so, a person can live with just one healthy kidney. What Jesus did is more analogous to that of donating a heart, which requires the death of the donor. But people don't do that voluntarily. As I said, Jesus is unique. In fact he has become the archetype of self-sacrificial love.

When we speak of love as a virtue, agape, we are talking about this kind of self-giving love. It is, as C.S. Lewis points out, not a love born out of need, such as our love for our parents. Generally speaking, we need our parents. As infants and small children we would die without them. As it is children raised without love grow up psychologically damaged, such as those who grew up in Soviet-era Romanian orphanages, where only physical needs were met. Nor is it love that feels like a need, such as erotic love. Strictly speaking, sex is not a need for the individual, only for the species as a whole. But it sure feels like a need, especially when you are young.

Rabbi Abraham Twerski has another word for this kind of need love; he calls it fish love. When you say you love fish, and by that you mean you love to eat them, you don't love the animals you kill and consume. You really mean you love what they do for you: taste good. It is actually self-love. Often when we love a romantic partner it is similar. We usually love that person for how they make us feel. We may protest: “But I give her/him so much!” The rabbi says in real love you don't give to those you love; you love those you give to. True love is about giving, not receiving.

Lewis said God's love is gift-love. We really can't give God anything; everything ultimately comes from him. We are not even that good about reciprocating the feeling of love he has for us. We even have to be reminded to be thankful for all he has done for us. Being God is literally a thankless task much of the time. And yet he continues to love us.

That is how we are called to love others. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, if you only love those who love you, what is the merit in that? You aren't doing anything more than anyone else already does. God on the other hand lets the sun rise and the rain fall on the fields of the good and the bad alike. By doing things like loving our enemies, we are imitating God and acting as his children should. (Matthew 5:44-47)

To love like that means that love cannot be based on our feelings. It has to be a commitment, a willed position one takes, regardless of how we feel about that person or how he or she treats us. In a way it is how a nurse or a doctor is committed to treat all sick and injured people who come to them. Some of them are rather unlovely. I have cared for people who were adulterers and those whose medical problems arose from their abuse of alcohol or drugs. Once I was assigned a man who was a local mob boss. I have been a nurse for a man who was shot and lost the use of his legs when his drug deal went wrong and a man who tried to kill himself when his wife found out he was having an affair with their foster daughter. Our code of ethics forbids us nurses to refuse to use our healing arts on anyone because we find them personally unlikable or morally repugnant. We are healers for all people.

In the same way, we Christians are to love all people, as God loves all people. And just as I don't have to like the people I take care of as a nurse, we are not commanded to like or have fuzzy warm feelings for everyone, just to love them, to commit ourselves to do what is best for everyone we encounter. If you understand love as merely an emotion, this is almost impossible to do. I say “almost” because within our families there are people whom we love but don't necessarily like. There's the uncle who is fine to talk about sports with but who always brings up divisive politics during the Thanksgiving meal. Or the aunt who is always there to help you when things go wrong in your life but who lets you know that it is your fault these things go wrong. Or the father who is tough on you, whom you respect but don't like as a person. Or the child who is always opposed to whatever you say and ungrateful for all you do for them. It is possible to love even deeply unlikable persons.

God loves us, despite what we do to his creation and to each other and even to ourselves. He is committed to change that, to make this world and us better. But because this is love, he will not force us. Instead he woos us. He appeals to our minds and hearts that we turn to him and follow him.

Our response falls into one of three kinds. We can be indifferent to his love. Billions are. They don't respond to God's offer of love. They go about living their lives without any reference to God or Jesus or the gospel.

We can lash out against him. This is something I've seen in nursing. You are trying to help a person and they fight you. Generally, I have seen this in dementia and mental illness but every so offer you encounter an otherwise rational patient, who refuses treatment, ignores warnings of what will happen and just wants to get discharged from care. Anti-vaxxers and people who really distrust medical science are like this. And there are people who are not merely indifferent to God but actively hostile to him. They are not so much atheists as anti-theists. They see nothing good whatsoever coming out of any religion and would like to see them all stamped out. Sometimes this arises out of a bad experience they had, often early in life, at the hands of a religious leader, or follower or institution. Sadly, sometimes it is our failure that damages people in such ways.

The third response is to reciprocate,  to meet God's offer of love with love. This can be fish love. Some people love God because of the good it does them, period. The real test is whether we react to God's undeserved, self-sacrificial love by responding in kind to others. Do we reflect God's love in all we think, say and do? Do we, as Francis of Assisi did, embrace the leper? Do we, as Mother Teresa did, care for the sick and dying? Do we, as Dorothy Day did, aid the poor and homeless? Do we reach out to help those who are indifferent, and even those who actively oppose God or ourselves? Jesus took up his cross for us. Do we take up our cross daily for others, bearing one another's burdens? (Galatians 6:2) It is impossible for us to do this naturally. They're not like family. We need God's help. Which is why this is a theological virtue. But what do we really think we are accomplishing by loving the unloving? Next week we will speak of hope.